


You'll Feel Extinction

by Mystrana, vextant



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Blood and Gore, F/M, Inspired by The Elder Scrolls, Major Character Injury, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:52:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15445623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystrana/pseuds/Mystrana, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vextant/pseuds/vextant
Summary: When Natasha wakes in a cave with her head pounding, her first thought is to wonder how drunk she and James had been the night before. Maybe the headache is a little worse than previous escapades, and the complete lack of clothing is new, but she's otherwise fine. That's when she realizes she's covered in fresh blood. Then she finds James— and he's gravely injured.--A dark fantasy BuckyNat story.





	You'll Feel Extinction

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my lovely artist AND beta, Mystrana! This fic was definitely a team effort and would not have been possible without her patience in whipping my draft into shape and her not one, but TWO lovely artworks! Mys, you were super inspiring to work with, I'm so glad you picked my prompt!
> 
> Here is a link to the [title song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RbwXdcJSCk), if you're interested in listening.

 

She wakes in darkness. Her skin feels too large, her limbs too loose, and for a moment she fears that she cannot move at all.

Then— sensation surges back into her limbs, hot and then cold, and then the pain floods in from her fingers and her toes. It’s an ache that builds through her limbs to curl and settle in her core like hot iron fresh from the forge suddenly quenched in water. The heat and the steam and the _pain_ wrenches a gasp from her throat, and her eyes water.

Too many sensations hit her all at once. It’s far too much, so she closes her eyes once again to take inventory. First, the smell—of shit, of mulch, that moist dirt scent that fills her nose like it does after a rainstorm. The air tastes stale, heavy, cold. She’s cold all over—it’s as if she was dunked in water and left out on the dirt to dry. Perhaps she _was_ quenched—reforged iron is also wet and slow to cool. The rocky soil digs into her bare back.

Bare?

It registers then—she’s cold because she’s _naked_. Her skin prickles at the awareness, gooseflesh rising on her arms and across her chest. Only the dirt echoes the heat of her own body back at her. When she opens her eyes again she can see her breath rise to the rocky ceiling.

Her gaze focuses as she blinks, the haze of unconsciousness wiped away like a newly polished eyepiece.The world is too sharp—much sharper than she expected, and it makes her head hurt to look too long. She can hear water, loud, rushing like a river like it’s right next to her. When she sits up, the muscles in her core tighten and leave the kind of bone-deep soreness that only extremely physical activity does. The trickle of water is further away, on the other side of the cave—a _cave_ —perhaps twenty strides even though the rush of the small current and the press of air in her ears is nearly oppressive.

She feels drunk. It isn’t the first time she’s woken up without remembering the night before—but it is the first time it’s been like this. Usually James is right beside her, half-awake with a pounding head and a soft groan. His drunk memories are usually much less accurate than hers—he is much quicker to lose himself and stay lost. This must be how he feels those mornings. Lost. Muddled in his head, as if someone reached in and stirred his brain up with a spoon. That’s how she feels right now. It makes her nauseous.

The tangy, sick smell of blood hits her then, and it makes her stomach roil further. There’s a body near the flow of water. Multiple bodies, mostly animals. There’s an elk, torn open from the chest to stomach, its organs dragged out and half consumed like it was attacked by a bear. There’s a couple of rabbits, or what she assumes to be a couple—they’re no more than a pair of ears here, a hind leg there. She narrowly avoids gagging up the emptiness that gnaws at her stomach. Trying not to look at the elk’s glassy dead eyes, she climbs to her feet and stumbles past it towards the pool, covering her mouth and nose with two shaking hands to try and block the smell.

It’s hard to keep in a straight line, hard to keep a standing posture when her body only wants to crumple forward onto all fours.

Next to the elk is the body of a dead man. Beside him, a folded cloak is mostly intact, although the same cannot be said for his corpse. She doesn’t recognize him; that isn’t much to say, as it is difficult to recognize the body as a man at all. She takes the cloak, and kneels heavily beside the stream.

The running water mars her reflection, but it shocks her regardless. There is blood caked on her nose, her chin, in her hair and underneath her fingernails. Her eyes look oddly bright somehow, sharp and intelligent, but foreign to her; she does not look upon herself often, but have they always been that green?

 

She scoops a handful of creek water into her mouth. The taste of dried blood—like rotten meat, like iron, like death—and it makes her gag again. She sets to washing herself first. It is haphazard, rough, and the blood and mud and dirt comes off in flakes when she scrubs hard with her nails. With a held breath, she dunks her whole head beneath the water and combs the muck and the knots out of her hair. She braids it easily, the physical memory of doing so many times before coming easier than any wisp of memory in her mind. She tears a bit of cloth off the bottom of the cloak to tie her hair and keep it up.

What brought her here, to this damp cave? Where is James?

Near her, the man’s body registers as familiar out of the corner of her eye—dark hair, light skin, fine features like his face had been sculpted—and panic clutches her heart tight in her chest. She rushes over to him.

He’s bare as well. With all his naked wounds on display, even in the dim light, it is unclear which actually killed him. His middle is carved out like the elk’s—the white of his ribs almost reflective, cracked open like a broken cage, spilling organs into the dirt and the muck. His skin is cold. Her breath catches in her throat until she can get a proper look at his face. The jaw is missing, ripped away, the remains of his tongue clinging to his throat like a fat, dead worm.

The body’s eyes are brown. It isn’t James.

A shudder runs through her, perhaps relief, perhaps revulsion, and she scrambles to wrap herself in the cloak. She sees the baby hairs, too small and fine to stay slicked back in her braid, wave in front of her face and feels herself shudder again. There’s a breeze. But where is it coming from?

She turns to face it. The movement’s too fast, and her head spins even as she stops and stands still. The nausea is too persistent to be alcohol. Suspicion, the fear of the unknown, the fear of lost memories and dried blood, and a dead man eviscerated at her feet all rise to the surface at once and it brings her to her knees. She stays still a moment to catch her breath. In. Out. In. Out.

Natasha stands again, and this time, she finds the source of the breeze. It spills out of a crack in the rock. As she stumbles close, one foot after the other, she sees that it is a passage, one sheet of rock in front of another with enough space for an ox to pass through. The daylight on the other side is bright, sharp white, and it stings her eyes and makes them water.

With one hand holding the cloak closed and the other on the rock to brace herself, she makes her way outside.

Something—a root, a rock, something solid and heavy that she can’t make out with her eyes still adjusting to the light—trips her, and she falls forward into the dirt before she can catch herself. She lies there a moment, frustrated and disoriented, and gives a bitter growl at her situation.<p?

It’s quieter out here. The sound of the trickling cave creek is insulated by the rock; she can only hear the wind in the trees, a bird in the distance and her soft, panicked breathing and a thready heartbeat. Natasha takes a deep breath, but the quiet pants don’t change. Someone else is nearby.

She lifts herself to her elbows. With a groan she rolls onto her back and pulls her legs off of whatever it was she had tripped over. Tugs the cloak, dark brown caked in mud, closer around her. Sits up and opens her eyes.

She finds James.

He’s so still and limp that she worries she’s only found his body. His legs are outstretched, the rest of him propped up against the outer wall of the cave. His right hand loosely grips his sword, defensive, like he had set himself to guard the entrance until he no longer had the strength to bear his blade. He’s coated in blood—his pale face, his chest, his shredded leather armor. Even the chainmail shirt he wears underneath—the one she playfully teases as him for always being too loud—is sliced open in places. She is glad for it now.

 

The weak, thready heartbeat must be his. She wretches the sword out of his hand. The blade is marbled, the long handle wrapped in leather, and the pommel intricately carved. There are small, rough red stones inlaid in the guard. Overall, it’s too fine a weapon for a small-time mercenary, but the blade has been with him as long as she has. It is a much a part of him as she is. She holds it up to his mouth.

There are small clouds of moisture on the blade. He’s still breathing.

She pats his cheek, softly and then a little harder, experimentally. He doesn’t stir.

James doesn’t have much time. She lays him down, mindful of any wounds in his head and neck. His skull is soft like a baby’s right above his left ear. Blood has run down his neck and soaked the cotton of his undershirt. It’s a stark contrast to the chalky pallor of his skin, white like a ghost.

She sets to stripping him down above the waist, lifting the remains of the leather and chainmail off and ripping through the cotton. His belt is missing from his waist. She finds it binding his left arm tight, right below the shoulder. A tourniquet.

Lifting the arm experimentally, Natasha is so surprised when she hears a soft, breathy groan that she drops it. James’ face twitches, eyebrows drawing together in a weak display of pain. His arm is by far the worst of it—stripped the bone in sections, layers of skin and muscle sagging from where they had been torn open by . . . something large. And _angry_. The blood on her hands is fresh. It seeps into the grass, dark and sluggish.

She has a brief flash of sinking her own hands into meaty, bleeding flesh, tearing it open, feeling the heat under her nails and watching the red spray across the skin. Her skin?

James moans again, almost silently, and goes still. It’s enough to push those thoughts out of her mind. His satchel is nearby, contents strewn like someone had thrown it. Broken glass and dried bright cherry-red liquid litter the ground. _Gods be damned._

Those potions might’ve been his only chance.

She hurries to the satchel anyway and digs inside. There are dried ingredients that they’ve gathered during their travels, blisterwort and butterfly wings and mountain flowers, but she doesn’t have enough time to boil them into a brew—

Wait. At the bottom. She hears glass clink together as she digs around and pulls out two bottles—one potion, one poultice.

It just might be enough.

Darting back to James, she’s quick to lift his torso and wedge herself underneath him so that he’s sitting somewhat upright. He’s heavy, and his head lolls, but she hooks her arms under his shoulders to tug him up. Laying his head back on her shoulder, his weak breathing is only a gentle warmth against her neck.

She uncorks the small bottle—it’s so small, will it even help at all?—and tilts his head back, forcing his mouth open with her grip. Pouring it all at once would be a waste, so she gently tips a small swig of it into his mouth.

James jerks when it hits the back of his throat, an automatic reaction. He does not wake, but his body forces a cough. The potion dribbles down the corner of his mouth.

“Come on now,” she says softly. It’s useless to talk to him, but something in her finds it reassuring to think that he could somehow hear. “I need you to swallow this, James. It will help with the hurt.”

He doesn’t react, but she expected that. Forcing his head back again, she pours a little more, careful to stroke his throat to entice him to swallow like one would a sick animal. Eventually he does—with a soft _gulping_ noise so comically out of place that it nearly makes her smile.

She tips another mouthful. Coaxes him to swallow. Again. And again, in small doses until the little bottle is empty.

Already James’ color has improved, but he makes no move to wake. His breath is steady but shallow. She doesn’t let it lull her. A careful maneuver has him lying on his back on the ground, head tilted to the side to breathe easier.

Wrapping the cloak tightly around herself, Natasha grips the empty bottle and dashes back inside the cave to fill it with water. His wounds need to be washed before using the poultice; infection is the deadliest of all ills. She will not lose James to negligence.

Back outside, she pours the cold water over the worst of the chest wounds, rinsing out bits of dried blood and dirt. James doesn’t even flinch. Cotton and leather fibers have gotten caught in his sticky flesh. A sword would have sliced clean open without forcing much into the wound; this looks more akin to a talon. Or a claw.

Natasha doesn’t know how long she does it, running back and forth—rinse a wound, pack the poultice in as best she can, race back into the cave to fill the little bottle with more water, and return to James to wash another of his injuries. The gashes in his chest and stomach get the most attention. Combined with the potion, the poultice nearly starts to seal them in front of her very eyes—Natasha thanks all the gods she can think of as she works. She’s halfway down his shoulder when the salve runs out.

There’s more color in his face when she kneels back to look him over one more time. His breaths are deeper now. His chest rises and falls, and it’s reassuring to watch. Gently, she sets her head on an uninjured part of his chest, right beside his heart to listen. Its beat has grown stronger and steadier and serves to help settle her own racing pulse.

“James,” she says once she sits up, “I don’t know what you were fighting, but I’m never letting you near one again.”

Natasha sits in the quiet for a moment, enjoying the soft noises of nature around her. The sun has risen to the middle of the sky, marking it as nearly midday. What was the last thing she remembered?

She and James had been hunting. Mercenary work is hard to come by and often far and difficult to travel to. Natasha knows that she and James each are worth an entire guilds’ retainer—a fact that may sound like simply arrogance, and yet is still a fact. Sometimes it puts them at odds with sellswords. They have made many enemies this way. Because the web of tentative alliances and unspoken contracts is so difficult and frustrating to navigate, she and James try to make their gold otherwise whenever they can. Hence, the hunting.

(She remembers hunting—fast, silent, teeth snapping shut around a throat—)

The memory can’t be right. They have a system, a process that only works since it is the two of them rather than a large party with dogs and horses and trumpets. The fanfare of noble-class hunting is overpriced and ineffective. Horses are the most useful bit of the whole parade—but mounts are expensive, and she and James can usually only afford to hire one when their hauls are too plenty for they themselves to carry. They typically bring more than just pelts to town too. Meat, bone, blood, eyes, tails, claws. All of these are useful—and more importantly, valuable.

As it goes, the more dangerous animals bring in the most profit. Venison and rabbit are well and good to fill cooking pots, but those with the coin to spend—primarily apothecaries and leatherworkers—will pay handsomely for rarer, stronger materials. Natasha and James will also occasionally happen upon a village willing to part with their gold in order to protect their children from what lurks in the deep, dark woods.

They hunt the predators.

The wildlife varies regionally; here it had been sabre cats, beasts that thrive in the mild woods of the south when they are free to hunt rabbit and deer. They’ve long grown accustomed to the many settlements in the area and occasionally venture towards a a town. Many a mother has used the cats’ presence as a warning to keep their children close to the farm.

She sits besides James and watches him breathe.

Perhaps the hunt went wrong. Natasha doesn’t remember much of it. (But maybe she does—running, breath fast and loose in her chest, the smell of prey and _blood_ , hot and sticky, fills her nose. She remembers the hunt.)

That isn’t how they work. Typically, she could lie in wait to kill it close or James could pick it off from an exceptional distance.

Once, he managed to freeze the surface of a stream as a deer drank on the other side. It had been winter, and the water already nearly frozen, making it easier for him to “convince” it, as he’d said. The animal realized too late that it was stuck—it was almost comical, watching it try to pry itself free. James laughed so hard that the rest of the herd was scared off, and one deer did not bring much extra coin. She admonished him for that.

Now, she chuckles at the memory. In this moment, his sleep does not seem painful, and the dark rings around his eyes disappearing make her hope that he will awaken soon. The tourniquet on his left arm is still tied tight, and the makeshift bandages that she’d torn out of shirt scraps are strained brown-red with dried blood. It crackled and flakes when she touches it. To her, it seems that his arm is no longer bleeding—but now that she has no more supplies, she’s hesitant to remove the bandages in case it begins again.

She considers using the ingredients she’d found earlier to make a potion while she waits for him to wake, since he’s heavy and near impossible for her to move on her own while he still sleeps.

“Tth…?” The soft noise is impossibly loud in her ears: the rest of the world falls silent as her eyes lock on James’ lips.

His mouth falls open the slightest bit. She holds her breath. Another little moan, quieter this time, but his brows draw together like they’re being pulled by little invisible strings.

“James,” she says. Asks? Pleads? Her logic is highly displeased at such raw emotional attachment, but even as he stirs further, she manages to squash it and force it back into the recesses of her mind. She taps his cheek lightly. “James, wake up.”

She counts as nearly a minute passes.

His eyes slide open.

They’re cloudy and unfocused, only small slivers of brilliant blue at first before he closes his eyes again and grimaces against the pain.

She remembers, years and years ago, having the realization that the color of his eyes is not the bright sapphire blue that village girls fawned over: they’re grey. James’ eyes take the sky and reflect it in their own color—they do the same with green grass, or the warm honey glow of candlelight. He has every color in his eyes, just as he has none of them.

This time she taps his cheek harder. “James, look at me.”

His face is much more expressive as he opens his eyes once more. In the corner of her vision, she sees his foot weakly scrape against the dirt. He blinks, and she watches his gaze start to focus over his shoulder and slide to her face.

“N’tts?” he whispers. It’s weak, hoarse, like his throat had been ripped up from the inside worse than his arm.

She’s careful not to jostle him as she settles closer. A rogue breeze forces her to draw the thin cloak tighter around herself.

“James.” She can’t help the smile.

After a long while James only says, “Mmngh.”

“James, I need you to stand.” Natasha grips his chin to keep his bleary eyes on her. “I can’t carry you.”

“W’hapnd?”

“Best I can tell, we got drunk and you fought a bear.” She lies because the uncertainty starts to broil in her gut again. “I don’t know where my clothes are.”

“G’d nigh.” He gives her a sloppy grin.

“You should have a look at yourself before you say anything of the sort.”

James does. Or he tries, at least, to sit up of his own power and barely lifts his head. His face suddenly contorts, and he groans as if he was just reminded of the pain. A raspy grimace bursts out of his throat as he looks down to his arm and tries to clench his fist. It’s a gasp, wordless, a sob. James lays his head back, chest heaving, with tears in his eyes.

“ _Gods_ —” he whispers, biting down on the rest.

His right hand is shaking. Tears are cutting through the grime on his face and leaving cleaner channels of pale skin behind. Just the sight makes her wants to cry herself.

Instead she hangs her head and closes her eyes because she just can’t watch him break like this. She can hear his shaking breaths, fast and then slower, as he tries to compose himself.

“I- I- can’t,” he sobs. “Tasha, my arm-”

“Shh,” Natasha says. It’s shaky, but it’s all she can offer. He whimpers in response, swallows down what he can of the pain. “Shh, we’ll fix it.”

James’ breathing evens out slowly; his eyes are red-rimmed and cloudy from the exertion when she looks at him again.

“We’ll fix it.” She scrambles for his hand but it’s the wrong one so and he cries out so she grips the healed part of his shoulder and says. “We just need to get to a healer. We’ll fix it.”

In her memory, the nearest healer is . . . far, and at the moment, she isn’t quite sure of how trustworthy her memory even is. Finding a village is no guarantee of such magic or even of a proper apothecary as they’re deep in the forest and far from any major towns. It had been days of journeying on foot—and that was when both of them were whole and healthy. Now James is slowly slipping back into a pained sleep, his thick eyelashes fluttering.

She taps him on the cheek again, pushes a little on his chest to keep him present. What she wouldn’t give to be a healer right at this very moment.

Natasha and James each have a little magic in them: nothing flashy, nothing so powerful that either of them could be considered a proper mage. He can play with temperature—but only in one direction. Their mead is always cold. He can, with effort and concentration, freeze something solid—but he has only recently worked up to a few cubes the size of dice. It’s nothing truly impressive, but useful for making coin selling cold drinks to weary travelers.

Her own skill is much more subtle. It’s not exactly _invisibility_ in the fantastical sense—it’s not as if she can camouflage her skin like a lizard—but she can fade from sight, blend into crowds, move about unnoticed. James calls it magic like his, but she prefers to think of it as mere ability. It is not something she can teach or explain, not something activated by spellwords or fooled by runes and warding. It is simply something she does. Right now, it is less than useful.

She taps his face again, hard, the strike of her hand echoing in a _slap_.

It works. His eyes slide back open, albeit slowly, but immediately lock onto hers. He was one of the few who could always see her no matter how well hidden she may be.

“James, I need you to stand.” The sun is high in the sky now. He may not be bleeding anymore, but many of his wounds are only freshly healed; she knows how these magics work, how they run the risk of being reopened if he doesn’t keep up his strength. Potions and such are a temporary measure. They are only meant to buy time. “I can’t carry you, and we need to go.”

He hears her. Gritting his teeth, he scrabbles for purchase to push himself to sitting, but his left arm is still unresponsive, and he only succeeds in nearly rolling himself over. The cry that he gives as his shoulder digs into the dirt makes her heart bleed.

She says gently, “Here, let me.”

Carefully she guides him to his back and nudges his legs until his knees are bent and the soles of his boots are flat against the ground. Then she stands and braces herself, planting her own bare feet in the dirt as best she can. She leans down, no longer as mindful of the cloak, and pulls his good arm up.

His full weight comes quicker than she expected. She can barely get her arm around his back to support him entirely, but she leans, and he manages to get his feet under him. They don’t go tumbling right away, which is heartening.

James’ hair is hanging in his face. He’s leaning heavily on her. She can see fresh tears on his cheeks as he licks his lips like he does while lining up a difficult shot or debating a hard choice. It’s good to see him so present, rather than the pale corpse she thought he was when she stumbled across him.

Natasha thanks the Gods that she found him at all.

It takes them a few long moments to actually get moving, but they’ve worked together for so long that finding momentum together is not a challenging thing. She takes a step and gently tugs him along while he stumbles in the direction she guides him. It must be an arduous task for him to do any more than that, as he lets his head loll as they walk.

For her, it is rather surprising how easy it comes to bear his weight. While James is not a tall man, he’s broad like an ox and corded with muscle—she’s seen him kick down doors and hoist cannons at the shoulder with little effort. He has, with considerable exertion and thick leather gloves, bent solid iron as part of a bet (winning which had come as a pleasant surprise to both of them—they’d enjoyed the blacksmith’s hospitality and his coin purse well afterwards). Despite her anxious heart still rabbiting in her chest over James’ every stumble, her body feels capable. She feels strong.

(She remembers tearing through skin like peach paper—hot blood in a spray across her face—the bones—the _meat_ —)

Their fall doesn’t register until she’s already hit the ground. Her elbow digs into James’ ribs; he groans and goes still, on his side in the grass and the dirt. The tang of fresh blood hits her nose and she swallows the panic that rises in her throat.

It’s quick work to lay James on his back again—his head doesn’t turn, and his hair stays splayed across his face where he fell. He’s breathing, which is good, but it does little to soothe her fears. There’s fresh blood sprayed across the leaves.

James is shirtless—she’d stripped him down to his trousers to treat him in the first place—so it’s clear and present immediately that some of wounds on his arm and even his chest have reopened. Gods be _damned_ , there’s blood everywhere.

“Is . . . everybody alright?” A voice comes from somewhere to her right. It’s meek, _weak_ , but her entire self snaps into alarm regardless.

There’s a man standing about twenty strides back. Middle-aged, graying hair, thin, no visible weapons. Her gut says _magic_ but there are no runes on his arms or staff in his hands. The long brown tunic he wears is plain like a monk’s and belted at the waist. Her gaze locks with his, and in that moment, she knows that she could kill him. She hopes that he knows as well. He looks—not _scared_ , but definitely unconfident and more timid at the knowledge. As he continues to approach, he’s cautious in the way he lifts his palms up, the way he moves slowly, the way he keeps his eyes on her. His cheeks are red like he’s flustered or ashamed.

She remembers then that she is bare but for the torn cloak that has since fallen open. It doesn’t register as important, as she is defensively hunched over James with his sword in her hand. The man in the brown tunic is forcing his eyes not to wander, but she is not ashamed of her body in the way that many others think she should be. There are more important things at stake than decency.

“Your friend is injured,” says the man, slow and clear like he’s speaking to an animal. “Are you in need of help?”

Natasha does not answer, but James groans and his eyes crack open for a moment—just long enough for his head to loll to the other side. The metal, earthy smell of blood fills her nose again.

“Who are you?” she growls.

“Banner,” says the monk. His tunic is plain and bares no insignia, no symbol. “They call me Bruce. I am no healer myself, but believe you me, I am quite familiar with the practice.”

Her grip on the sword shifts. She wants nothing more in that moment than to tear this Bruce Banner to shreds.

“I - I have a wagon—” Banner starts to say, but she cuts him off.

“Help him.”

“Of course, to the best of my ability. Could you help to lift him?”

She is hesitant to put the sword down as it is her best line of defense. (It’s not—she knows she can break bone with her bare hands because she’s _done_ it, felt it snap like dry old wood—she likes hearing her prey _howl_ —)

“Miss?” Banner is looking at her, although now she’s standing, and he’s the one hunched over James. He’s got James sitting up, his good arm looped over his shoulders. “Are you alright?”

Natasha doesn’t answer. Instead she grabs James’ other arm, the injured one, and winces when he moans. She bites down on the urge to say something to him, but not in front of this stranger. She stays silent as she hoists James up to hang limply between them, and his boots scrape against the ground. Natasha feels like she’s taking most of the weight anyway.

“It’s just here,” Banner says softly.

She sees the wagon. The horse is big and strong, a drafter with a grey coat and a long black mane covering most of its face. Something about the animal strikes her as unnatural; maybe how still it’s standing, or the fact that none of its hairs wave gently in the breeze. The beast just stays stock-still like a sculpture, and it makes her hesitate.

The wagon itself is more of a small cart, top open to the sky and packed full with crates and straw and plain sheets lying over the cargo. Banner gives most of James’ weight back to her—it’s as easy as it was before, and on top of the unnatural stillness of the horse, it makes her gut roil—and climbs into the back to pull the unresponsive man on top of the straw bedding.

She knows better than to trust this, but James is bleeding out, they’re days from the nearest town, and they don’t have much of a choice.

“Here.” Banner offers a hand to pull her up.

She takes it.

Soon, they are on their way. Banner only needs to whistle to spur the horse into action, like the beast suddenly remembered how to be a living being, and it nickers softly before trotting along, working up to as fast as its driver dare go. They are traveling along what Natasha soon realizes is an overgrown road, wagon tracks reclaimed by the grass and the weeds over years of disuse.

She sits on the straw with James, pressing a rag into the wound of his upper shoulder. He is alert now, more so than before, enough that he registers the bump and sway of the little cart with small noises like a sick child. His face is drawn tight in concentration. The fingers on his left arm are pale like death, and she presses down harder so that their lifelessness may not spread to the rest of him.

“I’ve got a spare tunic back there,” Banner calls back. “In one of the crates. You’re welcome to it.”

It is not cold nor uncomfortable for her, but she thinks it best to not further offend the man who has shown so much—perhaps not kindness exactly, but helpfulness, earnestness, towards them. The tunic she finds is dusky yellow, plain fabric that still smells faintly of the tumeric it was boiled in to give it its color. Underneath it, she finds books. _Dozens_ of them. Intricate covers, plain leather bindings, spines labelled in gold leaf. Some are even belted shut.

“I’d ask you not to open any of the tomes. Some of them are quite, ah, dangerous.”

“You’re a mage, then?”

“Nothing so romantic.” Banner chuckles halfheartedly.

She doesn’t smile, nor does she pry. Asking after books, no matter how strange or concerningly large a collection amassed in front of her, will not heal James any faster. After she slips the tunic on and belts it tight, she returns to her charge to put pressure back on the wounds.

“ _Shit_. Gods, Nat.” James grunts and winces against the fresh pain. His voice is weak and raspy. She should’ve filled up the bottle once more with water for him to drink, but she hadn’t thought of that. Her focus was, and still is, on keeping him alive. “D-Don’t. . . Don’t suppose you got any healin’ books, do ya, doc?”

Banner swallows visibly. Hesitates before he answers. “I’m afraid I’m not a doctor of that sort. I’m sorry.”

James lays back and wets his lips. The rings around his eyes are dark, standing out against the paleness of his cheeks and lips. His eyes don’t reflect the sky now, nor the grass—they are simply grey, overcast, cloudy in more ways than one. After a moment to compose himself, he drags his eyes over to look right at Natasha. She keeps pressing down on his shoulder.

“Nat,” James says, and it’s so soft that she barely makes her name out of the breathiness. He’s trying to lift his right hand, but it’s shaky like a leaf, and he can hardly move his fingers from the weakness.

“Shh.”

She doesn’t look at the blood on the rags, on her hands—but she can feel it. The warmth, the wet, the thickness of it repulses and attracts her at the same time. It’s not coming as quick anymore, and James is not as faded as he was when she first found him, but while she knows that it’s his blood, his _life_ , beneath her fingernails, at the same time it is disturbingly easy to distance herself. It is personal, but also not.

It is James, but it’s also just a body. Just meat.

Bile rises in her throat at the thought.

“Only a few more hours,” Banner calls softly, as if to break the tension in her head.

It doesn’t work.

Of course it isn’t just a body in the back of the cart with her. It isn’t the remains of that man in the cave, white ribs picked clean and old blood dried brown and motionless. It’s James. He has a beating heart, still, one that she can feel and _hear_. He has a grim smile, a tight coin purse, and deadly aim with a bow and arrow. James has a sense of humor, albeit not a very good one, and the strange ability to see her, always, even when she wants nothing more than to stay hidden. James is human, a man she’s seen in all states, physical, emotional, and otherwise—not a body. Not _meat_. But now she doesn’t trust herself to even speak to him.

She looks James in the eye and wonders when she had strayed so far from herself, from them and their partnership. When had she become so monstrous? What happened to her in that cave, that she must suddenly remind herself of her own humanity?

The sun is setting now.

The fading light of day refracts in James’ eyes, split into purple and gold. She sees pain there too. Worry. How selfless of him, to be worried about her as he bleeds out onto the straw in the back of some magical stranger’s cart. How _stupid_.

His eyes start to shut like the weight of the world is weighing them down. Natasha lets him fall back into unconsciousness. The rest will serve him better than the strain of being awake.

After a few miles more, James is asleep entirely. His wounds have stopped bleeding, and his chest rises and falls in a gentle slumber rather than the agonized fits she had expected. Perhaps he is simply too spent to spare the energy even in his sleep.

She is content to sit in silence when Bruce Banner breaks it with, “How long have you had the curse?”

“What?”

“You’re Lycan, is that correct?”

Natasha takes a moment to place the word but when she does it immediately sits so right and full inside her that her stomach drops out and she has to double over to help control the urge to spew.

Banner’s voice cuts sharply through the fog, “How long have you known?”

She cannot open her mouth. All the pieces slot into place and paint such a bloody picture that she turns and vomits right off the back of the cart. All those thoughts about blood, skin, _flesh_ , was that—? The thought finishes itself, but she dare not give it voice. Lycanthropy is rare, earned through a combination of bloodlines and ritual. She has neither of those.

But. The blood. The memories. The _memories_ , that must be what they are, of chasing down prey on all fours, of breaking bones, of ripping out throats—

James. His wounds were cluttered with cotton from his shirt, leather from his jerkin. Sliced open by talons, by claws, _her_ claws. She doesn’t try to force it, and the details don’t come unbidden—but what else could have done it but her?

She pukes again, retching up bile and spit, but there’s nothing left in her empty stomach. It devolves into a coughing fit so strong that tears fill her eyes. James’ prone form is so warm, so near her, but she cannot look at him directly. The blood smells strong. His life. His death.

Her hands are red and shaking.

“I- Gods, I’m so sorry. Is it recent?”

Lycanthropy. It means there is an animal inside her fighting tooth and nail to get out. Perhaps she is the animal.

Perhaps she is the monster.

Natasha stares at Bruce Banner’s back. Sensing her gaze, he glances over his shoulder again.

“Are you,” she starts, and she cannot bring herself to say the word, “cursed? Like me.”

He takes a moment to answer. “Not exactly like you. I am burdened with a different evil.”

She nods without responding. Her skin feels hot, tight, every fiber of her body thrumming with this new knowledge, this power. She has never felt more alive. She has never more wished for death.

There’s a large bump in the road as they pull from grass onto clear, carved dirt, and James groans. Natasha kneels beside him again, but she stops right before touching him. The thought of injuring him much worse burns hot in her mind—that she’d split open his chest and see his white ribs picked clean, his eyes glazed and empty of color, of life. Like the man in the cave.

She’s done enough to James already without infecting him further.

“We’re here,” says Banner.

A village springs up around them as they plod along on the dirt road. Small buildings, made of wood from the forest. There is a blacksmith and a church, a mill along the river for the grains brought in from the fields Natasha can see beyond the buildings.

James groans again, bringing her attention back to him. “N-Nats-...where’re w’h?”

“I’ll head for the inn to see if a healer is nearby.” Banner says and slows his not-horse to a stop near a hitching post.

“Nht,” grunts James as he reaches weakly for her hand.

On instinct she flinches away from his grasp, but then his eyes find hers, and he just looks so Gods-be-damned _hurt_ at her rejection that she immediately laces her fingers in his.

Banner’s boots hit the ground and kick up a small cloud of dirt. He raps his knuckles against the side of the cart to get her attention. James jolts at the noise.

“I’ll return shortly,” says Banner. “Stay here.”

“N-Nat,” James says again. He slips his hand out of hers to try and prop himself up. She glances at Banner’s back disappearing into the largest of the village buildings before helping him. “Nat, can’t feel m’arm.”

“And how about the rest of you?” She says softly, leaned in close. Can he smell the blood on her breath?

“M’....?” He hesitates and successfully sits up against a crate of books. His left arm flops uselessly to his side and _thunks_ against the straw-covered floor—he bites his lip against the grimace. “M.. M’head hurts…. Thirsty.”

“Alright.” She can’t help the grin. “Alright. We’ll get some water for you and a bed. Hot food, even, can you smell it?”

Taking a deep breath through his nose, James turns his face towards the sky. He closes his eyes to better let the experience of being alive seep into his bones. She is overjoyed to see him so close to himself. He is still pale and swaying a little in his weakness, but he is alert and responsive and thirsty, of all things—something she never thought she’d be glad to hear him say.

“I’ve got a potion!” Banner is back, bursting out of the inn like there are demons on his tail. “I’ve- ah, my friend, I am glad to see you awake. Here.”

He hands over the vial—deep red in a small, sealed bottle—to Natasha, but James makes a grab for it himself, and she lets him. Cracking it open between his teeth, James spits out the cork and downs the entire thing in one gulp. He winces at the taste; the stink of boiled herbs invades her nose.

“Tastes like shit.”

“I suppose that means it works.” Banner smiles, a fond, fatherly smile like one would give a successful apprentice. “Come, I’ve secured room and board for you both. They’re sending a rider out tonight; the nearest doctor should be here be midday tomorrow.”

Natasha hesitates. “We don’t have any coin.”

“This is no matter of coin.” He shakes his head and puts a hand over his heart. “I am truly grateful to be of help.”

“We’re grateful for it.” She tucks her shoulders under James’ right arm to help haul him upright.

“Wr’here.” James grins. “M’alive.”

With a soft chuckle she translates, “He means to thank you for saving his life.” _After I’m the one who threatened it_ , she doesn’t say.

“My friend, you are most welcome.” Banner unchains the rear of the cart, and together, they unload James.

He can stand mostly under his own will now, the strength of the new potion pumping through his heart, but the weakness of hunger and thirst have set in and he begins to sway with every step they take towards the inn.

At the door, the innkeeper rushes to help, taking James’ left side from Banner. Natasha is drawn further into the room by the promise of food and warmth. When she turns back, their helpful stranger is gone entirely.

Then James’ knees buckle, and her attention is forced to him. He grunts, frustrated, but they make it inside. They are shown to their room and gorge themselves on the warm bread and heavy cheese offered to them. There’s water too and plenty of it—James nearly finishes the whole jug on his own, and Natasha has to call for to innkeep to come refill it. They each enjoy a cursory bath, at the very least to wipe off the dust of the road and remind them of what proper cleanliness might be like.

The bed is small for the two of them, but they’ve spent time in closer quarters. Natasha lays James on his back, and he takes up the majority of the space just for himself. The belt-cum-tourniquet had been removed, but there is no color returning to his left hand. He cannot move it on his own, and the fingers are hard for even her to bend.

The wounds themselves seem to be healing, albeit slower than either of them would like—it will be nice to have James’ recovery confirmed by a doctor on the morrow. Perhaps it is too hopeful to ask the Gods for no lasting damage. She couldn’t bear to see him with a scar, a constant reminder of the monster inside her, even more so than the beast inside her head and the longing for the taste of blood on her tongue.

It is a dull rumble in the back of her mind, even now.

James is asleep again in record time. This time she is not as concerned, as she is feeling sleepy herself from the fullness of her belly and the warmth of being inside. Picking her way into the bed, she settles in the crook of James’ good arm and lets herself close her eyes to better enjoy the sound of his slow, steady heartbeat.

She does not trust herself to sleep, not yet. But they are here. James is alive.

For now, they are safe.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended as an origin-story-type fic in the same universe as [this little diddly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14081568). 
> 
> You can also like and/or reblog the tumblr post[here](https://vextant.tumblr.com/post/176315265546/youll-feel-extinction-a-78k-fic-for-the-buckynat) if you're so inclined. :D
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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